The invention relates generally to an apparatus and method for composing visual source material, and in particular, to an apparatus and method for dynamically composing stored source material for producing either a composition sequence, the electronic data necessary to form the composition sequence, or edited output.
Over the past two decades video tape has substantially replaced the traditional silver halide film and other "non-electronic" film as the preferred media on which to either compose or film a movie or other program material. The increasing use of video tape has occurred despite certain inherent limitations associated with video tape in comparison with traditional film. Video tape, for example, is inherently a "serial access" medium wherein the editor of the medium is unable to "see" the images on the tape medium and must rely instead upon electronic apparatus to produce an edited product. On the contrary, the film editor is able to have "hands-on" access to the visual scenes on the film which he can cut and splice in the editing room.
Thus, the departure from film has dampened in some respects the creative talents of the director in that he is no longer able to apply his talents directly to the program media. Instead, intermediate skilled personnel are employed to control the composing process, taking orders from the director.
The intermediate personnel perform the real-time hands-on manipulation of the video tape in an abstract environment of alphanumerics, in front of a complex control panel. The director's feel for the composition process is diminished, and the composing process is, as a consequence, also very slow and tedious.
It is also known that one advantage to composing film media is the ability to react to the temporal nature of the media. Thus the film can be run back and forth, picked up, and viewed, and physically spliced. These advantages do not yet exist in modern video composing equipment.
Therefore, primary objects of the invention are increasing the throughput in the composing of video source material, lessening or even removing the need for intermediate personnel so that the director is closer and more involved in the composing process, and solving the time-space problem inherent in video tape composition. Other objects of the invention are a flexible composition apparatus and method, and a reliable and "user friendly" apparatus and method that can directly or indirectly be used to automatically create a final edited master.